The thing about Selene Slocum-Lofton: to initial appearances, she was an impressive but forbidding old Southern grande dame who could and would break anything around her not to her interest.
But that was an adaptation to her early widowhood, and the fact that many men around her had thought they could get her and get Aaron Slocum-Lofton's fortune from her.
They had thus put themselves in the way of having Mrs. Slocum-Lofton use on them all her intelligence, energy, colossal grief and pain in losing her beloved husband, and sheer innate determination to defend herself and her money.
That was not a good place for a man to find himself in.
40 years later, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton stood alone as the third-richest person and richest woman in Lofton County, having made of the wreck of those who had learned the hard way into more than a billion dollars in assets she owned, and another several billion she had some controlling interest in.
Obviously, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton had a talent for making money, but a lot that drove it was a trauma-related defensive reaction – she had been attacked in her grief, and did not feel safe, and so had become a woman so fearsome that by the time she became a Christian, nobody dared to bother her.
But then she had met John Worley, and he had led her to Christ, and then into his love for her … and somehow, that younger woman who had been easy to get along with and fun-loving had started to peek out again, while the fearsome queen put down her defenses.
Mr. Worley had known his new love could be healed, because Mrs. Slocum-Lofton had never lost her essential and massive curiosity about the world, and also still reflected a bit of the fun in how she dressed. Elegant and queenly always – but with ageless flair. She was still cute at 84 because of that.
Just add love … and you could lead this woman who had destroyed businesses and businessmen who had offended her to be eating homemade cookies and milk for breakfast and liking it.
You could watch her pointing her pinky finger while dunking a cookie and pointing the other while holding the mug – and you could almost spit milk out all over everything before hearing her say “Serves you right for pulling a stunt like this on me!” but with what would have been pure, destructive scorn softened to a harmless tease … and then see her put everything down, put her arms around you, and rub your back until she was sure you weren't going to choke to death from laughing with milk in your mouth, while she took your napkin with her other hand and hid your face from the public until milk stopped leaking out of the corners of your mouth and you could swallow.
She could get you back, laugh for laugh – at 84 she still had a mind like a steel trap, and now that she had devoted herself not to harm anyone with it, and now that she had decided to love Mr. Worley back, she enjoyed creating fun for them too.
Mr. Worley enjoyed the balance of the woman – “Now after all that eating we must go by the track, John – we are too old to be running our blood sugar up like that without at least walking it down again.”
She had gotten him into walking, and not just walking – all kinds of interval training things to make use of the reality that while maybe at 75 and 84 they couldn't do all that they used to do, they didn't have to, either. They had all kinds of fun on the track, daily, and every other day she was willing to let him teach her about the benefits of strength training.
Each of their doctors had just said, in their pre-marriage checkups, that they were getting healthier by virtue of what they had added to their lives, but for Mrs. Slocum-Lofton, it was more dramatic.
After the track, and going home to shower and change, she showed her fiance a little bottle.
“They won't renew my prescription for high blood pressure any more – I don't need it!”
Then, she threw her arms around him, and started bawling.
“Thank you!”
Just add love, safety, and security – Mr. Worley was just that good at what he did for the woman he loved.
But if you weren't John Worley, well, life could get interesting in a bad way for you if you messed with Selene Slocum-Lofton. Lofton County was going to find out again, the very next day.
Image by Please Don't sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay